Friday, June 27, 2008

Centrally funded, centrally planned, centrally managed, the Canadian medical system is the epitome of the Socialist Way. Its alpha and omega, if you like. No sparrow shall fall. Sadly, the system is profoundly broken. Never a day goes by that you don't hear of some new outrage.

Enter Claude Castonguay. Who, you may well ask, is this guy? Well, he's the guy who thought this whole thing up. He's the Father of Canadian Medicare. Good ol' Claude figured back in the 1960's that if we could just get the filthy profit motive out of medicine, everything would be awesome and cool, like peace man. Capitalism bad, only government can set you free, etc.

Back in the 1960s, Castonguay chaired a Canadian government committee studying health reform and recommended that his home province of Quebec — then the largest and most affluent in the country — adopt government-administered health care, covering all citizens through tax levies.

The government followed his advice, leading to his modern-day moniker: "the father of Quebec medicare." Even this title seems modest; Castonguay's work triggered a domino effect across the country, until eventually his ideas were implemented from coast to coast.

Four decades later, as the chairman of a government committee reviewing Quebec health care this year, Castonguay concluded that the system is in "crisis."

Actually, in my humble yet quite well informed opinion, we've been in "crisis" around here since the early 1990's. In 2008 we've moved beyond crisis and are well into meltdown, we've burned through the emergency containment building and we're heading for the water table and a really big freakin' explosion. But, I digress.

So Claude started this whole debacle with his radical theories back in the days of Flower Power, what's he learned in 40 years? What radical rabbit is he going to pull out of his progressively pink hat to save us all from ourselves?

"We thought we could resolve the system's problems by rationing services or injecting massive amounts of new money into it," says Castonguay. But now he prescribes a radical overhaul: "We are proposing to give a greater role to the private sector so that people can exercise freedom of choice."

Ok, so I bolded that part. Sue me. But advocating freedom of choice?! That's some radical stuff! What kinda shit you been smokin' Claude?

Castonguay advocates contracting out services to the private sector, going so far as suggesting that public hospitals rent space during off-hours to entrepreneurial doctors. He supports co-pays for patients who want to see physicians. Castonguay, the man who championed public health insurance in Canada, now urges for the legalization of private health insurance.

Yes friends, no less a man than the very Father of Canadian Medicare has admitted that he fucked up big time, and wants to put things back pretty much the way they were back in the 1960's before he stuck his big monkey wrench in the gears. As the author notes, that's a hell of an admission from a hard core socialist.

In America, these ideas may not sound shocking. But in Canada, where the private sector has been shunned for decades, these are extraordinary views, especially coming from Castonguay. It's as if John Maynard Keynes, resting on his British death bed in 1946, had declared that his faith in government interventionism was misplaced.

An admission of such magnitude makes one wax philosophical, and to reflect upon the arrogance of man. Here we have Claude, biiiig intellectual, well educated in the history of medicine and economics as well. He knew at the time that left to themselves, human beings self assemble into a kind of small time capitalism. Value for value is the rule of life. But he thought he was smarter than history, so he went with the exact opposite. Value given for no value received, aka "free" medical care for all. Keynesian socialism writ large, since we mentioned big JM there.

In less exalted circles this is called "pissing into the wind". You have to be an intellectual to think you can do that and not get any on you.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Todays important and stunning news, the Supreme Court of the USA can read and understand English!

The Constitution does not permit "the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home," Scalia said. The court also struck down Washington's requirement that firearms be equipped with trigger locks.

Amazing! Most of them read "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." and understood it.

However, some did not:

In a dissent he summarized from the bench, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority "would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons."

He said such evidence "is nowhere to be found."

Meaning that Justice John Paul Stevens has missed the entire point of the American Revolution. Given the decisions coming out of that court the last 40 years, this is not surprising.